A quick catchup with the likeable brit after the Assen Supersport rACE

Words: Laura Bradley, Pics: Andrew Hartley

Sam Lowes, a name that is definitely no stranger in the world of motorbike racing. He’s now in his third year of World Supersport following his victory in the Britsh Supersport Championship with GNS Honda. He did his first two years with PTR on a Honda and, this season, made a controversial decision to switch over to a Yamaha with the new Russian team, Yaknich.

Philip Island was a good race, but the bike lost out to the speed of Sofuoglu’s Team Mahi Kawasaki, Aragon brought heartbreak when he would have led the championship just having finished the race, but a problem with the bike on the last lap caused him to retire from a comfortable lead...and then there was Assen. Having almost killed himself on his first year here and crashing twice in the race last year, it would be fair to say hopes weren’t too high for Sam’s race this year...but how wrong we all were.

After an entertaining battle with Sofuoglu, it was a drag race to the finish and the young man from Lincoln won his first race of 2013. After he had finished his post race interviews and congratulated his colleagues, we had a quick (and we mean quick) catch up with him to see how he was feeling. Here’s what happened:

How are you feeling?

Not very happy, you know, it was a hard race...no I’m only joking! It was good and obviously I’m very happy, I’m looking forward to the next few races now. I mean Aragon was a low, but we’re only nine points behind in the championship now. It’s still behind, but it’s only one race, isn’t it, whereas before it was quite a lot.

Do you feel like it could be a year of opposites seeing as last year’s Aragon round was great for you and this year wasn’t so, and then obviously this round...?

Ha, yeah I’ve never finished a race in Assen (chuckles) so to win it was good! I don’t know, it’s hard to think like that isn’t it, otherwise you’d be going to races knowing you’re going to win or not to...yeah I think Kenan and Fabien will be fast all year, they have a good bike and a decent team. There will be some other guys, too, but we’ll just wait and see. I’ve got a good team so I know we can do it.

So are we to expect the same performance at Monza?

Yeah, Monza might be difficult for us but I’ll just have to work hard and we’ll see...I like Monza so hopefully it’ll be good.

Sam is a good friend of ours here at MotorbikesToday, and whilst we try to not be biased, we do like to see him do well and hope he’ll get the championship win that he so highly deserves. He is loving his affair with the Yamaha, so hopefully we’ll keep seeing these performances from him and that huge smile on his face.